I let darkness take over when I was sixteen. That’s when my world fell apart. That’s when I learned Tucker Stavros took my life away from me. I’ve spent years allowing the darkness to comfort me; letting it take my emotions and box them up. Why do I need emotions anyway? They only make me weak. I need to be strong for what needs to be done.

What needs to be done, you ask?

That’s simple. Destroy Tucker. Bring him to his knees. Show him how it feels to lose everything.

Well, that was the plan, until Cammie Richards walked into my life. Now there are gray areas — slight color bleeding through the black. What happens when she looks beneath my darkness and sees the monster lurking there? Will she run away or try to save me?

How do I tell her I can’t be saved?

Going into Beneath His Darkness by Renee Dyer, I knew that it would be a much darker read than the previous books in the Healing Hearts series. However, I couldn’t have ever dreamt what the journey, or the destination, would be like. It is filled with ups and downs meant to tear you apart and then fill you back up with hope. It’s a man’s journey to finding himself and realizing that things aren’t always what they may seem. Beneath His Darkness may not be your average love story, but it is certainly one you don’t want to miss!

“There’s no room in my life for pain. No room for pity.”

Even though we went into the book knowing that Grant was the bad guy (as I had read the others in the series), I never could have imagined the lengths with which he went to seek his revenge. Getting into his head was terrifying at times, but also completely necessary. He could be so mean and ruthless and just plain arrogant. However, we also saw these vulnerabilities seep in, especially when it came to Cammie. She was the radiance to the darkness in this story; a little firecracker. I just wanted to squeeze her for the way that she would trust her gut and her heart over the words that anyone else spoke about Grant. The way that their relationship dynamic was written is such gold. She became that sliver of light for Grant who eventually seeped through every crack to allow him nowhere to hide. The way that he appreciated their friendship and grew from those feelings just flowed so effortlessly in the writing.

“No room to care who gets hurt in the crossfire.”

Any reader of the Healing Hearts series could see that Grant had a story screaming to get out and it was important that he got his chance to tell it. The result ended up being Renee Dyer’s best work to date. It was so much fun to watch the journey to redemption of someone we had previously hated. His character took us on an emotional roller coaster from beginning to end. The reader goes through periods of happiness, of shock, and of complete sadness for the shell of a man that he was at points in his life. Even through all the negative things that he had put others through, you can’t help but adore the man who only wants to be loved – even if he doesn’t realize it.

“I didn’t ask for this fight.”

I love to see a good villain novel, and Beneath His Darkness was just that. It’s the story of one man’s truth, both the good and the bad. It was Grant learning how to love and discovering just what that word meant. I also love when you can see author growth from each sequential book and Renee Dyer has, without a doubt, shown that. Even though I had to slightly push my comfort zone at times with Beneath His Darkness, I reveled in every moment. I’m definitely looking forward to what else Renee Dyer can do!

From a young age Renee Dyer had a love of writing, starting with a doodle pad at age four that soon turned into journals and later computer documents. Poetry became short stories and short stories became a novel. Although she’s surrounded by males all day having three sons, a husband and a hyperactive chocolate lab, she still finds time to be all woman when she escapes into the fantasy of reading and writing romance. That is, until she needs male perspective and garners eye rolling from her husband. She’s a true New Englander. You’ll find her screaming profanity at her TV while the Pats play and cuddling under blankets during the cold seasons (which is most of them) reading a good book. To her snow is not a reason to shut things down, only a reason to slow down and admire the beauty. Ask her questions and she’ll answer them. She’s an open book, pun fully intended.